WHIPLASH

INTRODUCTION:
Whiplash is a 2014 American drama film written and directed by Damien
Chazelle. This movie is basically about a relation between a teacher and
his student, with dedication and eagerness of learning something and
making one to learn that from nothing to great potential is what especially
shown in the movie.

A first year Jazz student at the Shaffer conservatory in New York, Andrew
Neiman being a devoted drummer is shown practicing relentlessly at the
first scene in the movie. Terrence Fletcher, a Jazz Conductor saw him
playing, but left after a couple of minutes saying nothing to Andrew. Later
during a class, Fletcher giving a break to his core drummer asked Andrew
to play. Andrew being excited, rushed to play; but soon got attention of
Fletcher as he seemed disappointed with his performance. Moreover,
Fletcher threw slaps right across Andrew’s face and soon replaced him with
the core-drummer again. Once later in the movie, during a Jazz competition
Andrew somehow lost few drum notes but he was seen soon compensating
that by playing the drums without them in place of the core-drummer, .that
made him replace the core drummer by Fletcher again. While rehearsing a
composition later one day, Fletcher being not satisfied with Ryan, Carl and
Andrew’s performance, made them practice throughout night and Andrew
ended up making himself bleed his hands. Andrew pulled out his best to be
the best core-drummer; he was so committed that once even after facing
an accident he didn’t missed his class, moreover he broke up with his
girlfriend to be consistent with his practice.
Analysis of character “Andrew”
The character of Andrew Neiman is shown portraying very industrious.
Initially in the movie, he’s seen less confident with low self-esteem, but
there was the prominent presence of Need for Adequacy. His self was a
little bit down but with great focus and curiosity. For a character like Andrew
with such potential but low self-confidence, Fletcher played a very
appropriate role to pull him up to his best and perfect his skills. Neiman’s
character is seen from the beginning of the movie, working hard but not
seen as a good drummer at first. Seeing such a guy with skills which were
needed to be sharpened, Fletcher took the responsibility to make him his
skills polished. The character of Neiman always showed a never giving-up
trait, which even left him unsatisfied with his performance all the time. With
Fletcher’s dedication of teaching him to the best, made Andrew achieve
great heights in Drumming. Several times in the movie it’s seen that
Fletcher criticizing Andrew ,which in other words Fletcher solely meant to
furnish his skills because he wanted to see the next Charlie Parker in
Andrew. Being so persistent, Andrew is always seen to tolerate all those
abusive behaviors of Fletcher and still never deviated from his goals.
Moreover Andrew learnt to every possible extent to what Fletcher wanted
to teach him, even he didn’t succeed every time. Hence , in other words
one can say that determination for pushing one’s students to their best
abilities is not meant to be expressed every time only by showing
politeness and respect but could also be portrayed by tough means.
Basically, a teacher always tries to motivate his\her students for achieving
something in a positive manner by providing an appropriate atmosphere for
his\her self-development. While in the movie, Fletcher is seen doing totally
the contrasting behavior. He injured Andrew’s self to greatest extent to
make himself strong in his fields of Drumming. Throughout the movie,
Andrew is seen converted from being pessimistic, less assertive to well-
built person; not only as a good drummer but also as a person himself.
CONCLUSION:
Whiplash means a severe jerk or impact to the head forcefully. We can say
that the movie got its most appropriate title ‘WHIPLASH’, as its seen that
how Fletcher perfects Andrew’s skills by means of abusive and harsh
behavior several times which not only developed his drumming skills but
also his own self .